Ice is used throughout the world for cooling of many goods. This may include the cooling of food and beverages. In most instances, ice is transported to a desired location in plastic bags. Bags are convenient as any water produced from melting ice is contained in the bag. Further, the ice is able to be easily distributed as the bags can be easily split.
The manual packing of bags with ice is very time consuming. Hence ice bagging machines have been produced to quickly and effectively bag ice. Most ice bagging machines have at least one chamber that is filled with ice from a hopper and then transferred into a bag. It is important that the quantity of ice that is dispensed in a bag is arcuate to provide consumers with the amount of ice they are assume they are purchasing. Therefore the chamber that dispenses ice is of a precise volume.
A major difficulty associated with the bagging of ice is bridging of ice within the hopper. Bridging occurs when pieces of ice located adjacent each other stick together to form a wall within the hopper. This prevents chamber from being entirely filled and subsequently this causes the bags to be under filled with ice.
In order to address this problem, many hoppers have been constructed with a vibration device such as that shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,878,523. This vibration device vibrates the hopper in order to agitate the pieces of ice so they do not stick to each other. Generally, the vibration device operates effectively to prevent bridging. However, to operate effectively the vibration must be strictly controlled. If the level of vibration is not maintained, then bridging of ice within the hopper can occur. Further, the vibration device makes the ice bagging machine more expensive to purchase and to maintain.